Congress put a question mark on the Navy's multi-billion dollar intranet plan last week by adding language to the fiscal 2001 Defense authorization bill withholding funds for the project.

The version of the bill approved by the House Armed Services Committee requires a thorough financial and policy analysis of the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) project before it moves forward. The provision prohibits the Secretary of the Navy from using funds for the project in fiscal 2001 until Congress receives appropriate documentation.

The Senate Armed Services Committee inserted language in its version of the bill cautioning the Navy to comply with existing acquisition regulations in completing the project.

Both Congress and the General Accounting Office have voiced concern over the Navy's intranet initiative, which could cost $16 billion over eight years. The intranet will provide service members and employees-both in the United States and abroad-access to voice, video and data communication through a sole service provider.

Critics of the initiative cite the Navy's lack of a preliminary business case plan and sketchy funding proposals as serious risks. Under the 1996 Clinger-Cohen Act, agencies are required to submit a detailed and thorough business case to Congress for all large-scale IT projects.

The Navy has said it will fund the NMCI project with money already allocated for existing IT contracts and services.

The Navy did not specifically include the initiative in its fiscal 2000 and 2001 requests for funding.

Ron Turner, deputy chief information officer at the Navy, said the service has been working diligently with members of Congress and congressional staffers, visiting the Hill frequently to deliver briefings on NMCI. Turner noted that overall, "absolutely nobody [on the Hill] has questioned what we are doing" in the sense of establishing an extensive intranet, but that concerns revolve primarily around cost, personnel and small business procurement issues.

By using this service you agree not to post material that is obscene, harassing, defamatory, or
otherwise objectionable. Although GovExec.com does not monitor comments posted to this site (and
has no obligation to), it reserves the right to delete, edit, or move any material that it deems
to be in violation of this rule.

Database-level encryption had its origins in the 1990s and early 2000s in response to very basic risks which largely revolved around the theft of servers, backup tapes and other physical-layer assets. As noted in Verizon’s 2014, Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR)1, threats today are far more advanced and dangerous.

In order to better understand the current state of external and internal-facing agency workplace applications, Government Business Council (GBC) and Riverbed undertook an in-depth research study of federal employees. Overall, survey findings indicate that federal IT applications still face a gamut of challenges with regard to quality, reliability, and performance management.

PIV- I And Multifactor Authentication: The Best Defense for Federal Government Contractors

This white paper explores NIST SP 800-171 and why compliance is critical to federal government contractors, especially those that work with the Department of Defense, as well as how leveraging PIV-I credentialing with multifactor authentication can be used as a defense against cyberattacks

This research study aims to understand how state and local leaders regard their agency’s innovation efforts and what they are doing to overcome the challenges they face in successfully implementing these efforts.

The U.S. healthcare industry is rapidly moving away from traditional fee-for-service models and towards value-based purchasing that reimburses physicians for quality of care in place of frequency of care.